YEARAHEAD - US food safety confronted by "bioterror" threat
Date: 20-Dec-01
Country: USA
Author: Julie Ingwersen
As with so many aspects of life in the United States, that changed on
September 11.
In the days following the devastating air attacks on U.S. targets, the
country suddenly faced the possibility of intentional contamination of
its food - a prospect underscored by the rash of anthrax-infected mail
sent to congressional leaders and media companies. Anthrax has killed at
least five people since October and infected more than a dozen.
If a terrorist's goal is to generate fear and deliver an economic blow,
attacking the food supply would make sense, said Jerry Jaax, a Kansas
State University veterinarian and bio-warfare expert.
The billion-dollar losses in Europe from herd culls and food recalls
after outbreaks of mad cow disease and foot-and-mouth disease illustrate
the massive economic impact when people live in fear of tainted food.
One scenario that worries U.S. food industry leaders is the intentional
introduction of foot-and-mouth disease, the highly contagious livestock
illness that triggered mass animal slaughter and shut down trade in
Europe. That could hobble the $100 billion U.S. livestock industry.
"It's important to recognize that it's an economic sort of a thing,"
Jaax said. "It's not about people wanting to kill cows. It's about
people wanting to affect our national economic infrastructure."
Jaax, who served as a veterinarian in the U.S. Army for 26 years, said
many of the germ warfare agents developed by the Soviet Union and other
government-sponsored programs during the Cold War were based on
veterinary diseases.
"It was perceived by whoever was driving those programs that
agricultural pathogens would be useful," he said.
MORE FEDERAL FUNDS SOUGHT
The Bush administration has requested an additional $1.5 billion for
next year to strengthen the ability of the United States to prevent and
respond to a bioterrorist attack, as part of a $40 billion homeland
defense package.
"We've grown stronger and better prepared, and will continue to in
coming months. With these additional resources, we can place greater
attention on our efforts to better ensure the safety of our food
supply," Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson told a
meeting of the U.S. National Food Processors Association on November 27.
Government funds are being aimed at more numerous and more frequent
inspections of food, more food inspectors, better oversight of private
industries like feed production, and computerized tracking of food
ingredients, especially imports.
The stakes are high, however, and despite years of tightening standards
in industries like meat processing and heightened measures to prevent
mad cow disease, doubts remain about how prepared the U.S. is to assure
a safe food supply.
U.S. PREPAREDNESS STILL IN QUESTION
Opinions differ as to whether the United States is prepared to handle a
severe outbreak of a disease like foot-and-mouth.
The United States has been free of the disease since 1929, but the
February outbreak of foot-and-mouth in Britain sent shock waves through
the American agricultural sector. British authorities had nearly 4
million animals destroyed in their eight-month eradication effort.
In the United States, "biosecurity" became a buzzword last spring as
federal and state authorities urged farmers to keep strangers away from
their herds and sanitize clothing and equipment before and after
contacting animals.
State officials devised elaborate response plans in case of a local
outbreak, and the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) stepped up
customs inspections at U.S. points of entry.
But a report issued in November by the National Association of State
Departments of Agriculture said the federal government was still
ill-prepared to handle a livestock catastrophe.
"Infrastructure inadequacies, especially in terms of staffing and
facilities, are now so deep that the (USDA) system cannot appropriately
respond to a se
